IT Doesn’t matter
IT Doesn’t matter
“If a company needs evidence of the kind of money that might be saved, it need only look at
Microsoft’s profit margin”
Excerpts from a company’s strategy document
• ...the company will ensure that it will have at least 2 plug points in each room with AC connection.
• The switches will be white in color and will make a ‘click’ sound on pressing
•
Press to hear the click sound
Disclaimer
• We all agree to the fact that IT plays a crucial role in running an organisation.
• All that we are driving at is that the existence of IT does not grant a competitive advantage to a company, anymore
In other words, IT lets you remain in the race,
Winning is a totally different ball game altogether
The (lost) Edge
• Can IT provide an edge for you?
• You only gain an edge over rivals by having or doing something that they can’t have or do.
• By now, the core functions of IT – data storage, data processing, and data transport – have become available and affordable to all.
• And hence they are becoming costs of doing business that must be paid by all but provide distinction to none
Risk >>> Advantage
• When a resource becomes essential to competition but inconsequential to strategy, the risks it creates become more important than the advantages it provides
• Lets classify technologies into
• Proprietary technologies
• Infrastructural technologies.
• Proprietary technologies can be owned, actually or effectively, by a single company.
• Infrastructural technologies, in contrast, offer far more value when shared
IT has all the hallmarks of an infrastructural technology.
• Its mix of characteristics guarantees particularly rapid commoditization.
• IT is, first of all, a transport mechanism–it carries digital information just as railroads carry goods and power grids carry electricity.
• And like any transport mechanism, it is far more valuable when shared than when used in isolation
Hence the
“If a company needs evidence of the kind of money that might be saved, it need only look at
Microsoft’s profit margin”
Excerpts from a company’s strategy document
• ...the company will ensure that it will have at least 2 plug points in each room with AC connection.
• The switches will be white in color and will make a ‘click’ sound on pressing
•
Press to hear the click sound
Disclaimer
• We all agree to the fact that IT plays a crucial role in running an organisation.
• All that we are driving at is that the existence of IT does not grant a competitive advantage to a company, anymore
In other words, IT lets you remain in the race,
Winning is a totally different ball game altogether
The (lost) Edge
• Can IT provide an edge for you?
• You only gain an edge over rivals by having or doing something that they can’t have or do.
• By now, the core functions of IT – data storage, data processing, and data transport – have become available and affordable to all.
• And hence they are becoming costs of doing business that must be paid by all but provide distinction to none
Risk >>> Advantage
• When a resource becomes essential to competition but inconsequential to strategy, the risks it creates become more important than the advantages it provides
• Lets classify technologies into
• Proprietary technologies
• Infrastructural technologies.
• Proprietary technologies can be owned, actually or effectively, by a single company.
• Infrastructural technologies, in contrast, offer far more value when shared
IT has all the hallmarks of an infrastructural technology.
• Its mix of characteristics guarantees particularly rapid commoditization.
• IT is, first of all, a transport mechanism–it carries digital information just as railroads carry goods and power grids carry electricity.
• And like any transport mechanism, it is far more valuable when shared than when used in isolation
Hence the